Greg Jefferson: The Vision thing

To lash together Main Plaza and Market Square with glittering thoroughfares of shops, apartments and condos? To reverse decades of decline due west of City Hall? To relocate scores and scores of parking spaces? To pull the Spanish Governor’s Palace out of obscurity and restore San Pedro Creek?

Is Hardberger — already planning a push next year to ease term limits and trying to keep San Antonio River improvements in the forefront — ready to take on an initiative that would dwarf the $10 million restoration of Main Plaza, passage of which cost him an unexpectedly big chunk of time and effort in his first term?

No, not really.

Hardberger has been talking to reporters, including one from WOAI, this week about his Vision, which turned into a fairly substantial segment on the Tuesday night newscast. But it’s a vision that doesn’t seem to have a plan of attack behind it.

“The first step in all of that is Main Plaza,” Hardberger said. “However, these are long-range plans and they’re not entirely original. They have been talked about before” — in Nelson Wolff’s time as mayor. “Right now, I’d have to say it’s conceptual and would have to be done incrementally… I’m not certain we can do any of that while I’m still mayor — among others, because we’ve got four big projects going right now.”

Considering the mayor’s lust for bricks and mortar, his aim is modest: “to keep the idea alive.”